TheChek News Flow

For anyone who might have missed it, Brazil is in trouble.

The country is "at the center of a triple unwind of EM credit, China’s leverage, and US monetary easing" (to quote Morgan Stanley) and as Goldman recently pointed out, faces a stagflationary nightmare.

Last quarter, Brazil suffered through the worst growth-inflation mix in over ten years. As Goldman put it, "since 1Q2004 there has not been a single quarter in which we had simultaneously higher inflation and lower growth than during 2Q2015."

And then there's the twin deficit problem. Here's Goldman again:

Over the last 11.5 years, we cannot identify a month with a strictly-worse fiscal-CA deficit outcome than that of May-15 (lower left quadrant is empty). In fact, at 7.9% of GDP the fiscal deficit is now the widest it has ever been since Jan-04, and there were only a few months (5 out of 137 months in the sample) were the current account deficit was marginally wider than currently.

Meanwhile, as we mentioned on Monday, Dilma Rousseff is now the most unpopular democratically elected president since a military dictatorship ended in 1985, with an approval rating of just 8%. In a recent poll, 71% said they disapprove of the way Rousseff is doing her job... and two-thirds would like to see her impeached. Here’s Bloomberg summing up the situation: 

To be sure, the president faces a host of challenges this month, not least of which is a nationwide protest planned for Aug. 16.

 

The country’s audit court also must decide whether the government broke the fiscal law by doctoring budget results last year. A ruling against the government could provide the legal foundation to start impeachment hearings, opposition lawmakers say. Her administration says previous presidents used the same practices.

 

Investors are concerned that the political instability will push Brazil into a deeper recession and make it increasingly vulnerable to a sovereign-credit downgrade. The real has depreciated 8.1 percent in the last month, the biggest decline among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

 

Given all of this, just about the last thing Brazil needed was for China to officially enter the global currency wars, which is of course exactly what happened overnight. Our response:

And the response from Brazil's trade ministry (via Reuters):

Brazil's Trade Minister Armando Monteiro on Tuesday said China's decision to devalue the yuan could hurt the country's manufacturing exports. 

So what lies ahead for Brazil given all of the above? Well, further BRL weakness - or at least according to Goldman. Here's more:

We are moving our BRL forecasts to show further downside – we expect $/BRL to reach 4.00 in 12 months (relative to 3.55 previously). A weaker BRL is part of a necessary adjustment to address the macro imbalances in Brazil; and the combination of a weak and increasingly back-loaded path of fiscal adjustment and a central bank that appears to be done with tightening policy for now suggests that the exchange rate is likely to bear more of the overall burden of absorbing the impact of the commodity price downdraft, restoring competitiveness and correcting the current account deficit. 

 

Brazil stands at a crossroads – both roads involve currency depreciation. The combination of significant macro challenges (economic contraction, elevated inflation and large fiscal and current account deficits) and a deteriorating political and institutional backdrop means that Brazil stands at a pivotal crossroads. One road involves the risk of a further deterioration in the political backdrop morphing into a full-fledged governability and institutional crisis (potentially including the departure of key policymakers) and a further deterioration in investor (and rating agency) confidence, with an associated additional hit to an already contracting economy. The other road involves a potential stabilisation in the political picture, which in turn would provide the authorities with room to undertake necessary short- and medium-term fiscal consolidation measures, coupled with monetary easing further down the line. In either case, we think the BRL is likely to depreciate further because it is hard for us to see a route back to a more balanced set of macro outcomes in Brazil that do not involve currency weakness. Along the first road, the depreciation is likely to be sharper and disruptive, with scope for overshooting and an eventual rebound; the alternative scenario would likely involve a grinding, more controlled move, potentially encouraged by policymakers.

 

Macro imbalances in Brazil are large, the worst in almost a decade...We have developed a simple scoring algorithm to assess the scale of internal (inflation relative to target) and external imbalances (current accounts relative to sustainable levels) and, as Exhibit 1 shows, in Brazil these imbalances are at their widest combined level in a decade. The fiscal deficit at -8.1% of GDP is also at its widest in more than 20 years, with the combined twin deficits now tracking at a disquieting 12.5% of GDP.

 

 

Of course as we said late last month, the simple fact is that whether it's China, runaway stagflation, or simple politician greed and corruption, Brazil has passed the recession phase and its economy is in absolute free fall and against a backdrop of an escalating currency war (which the country's most important trading partner has just officially entered), unattainable fiscal targets, and protracted weakness in commodity prices, the path to stabilization and rebalancing is anything but clear, but what does seem virtually certain is that Brazil has a date with junk status in the not-so-distant future. 

And on cue, just moments ago:

• BRAZIL CUT TO Baa3 FROM Baa2 BY MOODY'S; OUTLOOK TO STABLE

So that's one step up from junk for Moody's and one step from junk for S&P - it shouldn't be long now, because no matter what Moody's says, there isn't anything "stable" about this situation.

We suppose the only lingering questions are whether Rousseff will be impeached and whether economic decay, a dangerously unstable political situation, and problems of a more, shall we say, "putrid" nature, will conspire to make Rio a veritable ghost town for next summer's Olympic games.

Then again, this young lady doesn't seem particularly concerned...

Global equity markets retreated on Tuesday as investors responded to the overnight devaluation of China's yuan. Specifically, the People's Bank of China lowered the yuan fix by the largest amount on record, sending the USD/CNY pair higher by 1.9% to 6.3249.

The move invited renewed trepidations about the pace of economic growth in China while also feeding concerns that China's trading partners may feel compelled to respond by weakening their own currencies. For instance, the Japanese yen was in focus during the session amid speculation the Bank of Japan may be forced to step up its easing efforts to support the country's exporters. As a result, the dollar/yen pair climbed 0.4% to 125.07, nearing a 13-year high.

The major European indices lost between 1.1% and 2.7% with the retreat paced by exporter stocks while the S&P settled lower by 1.0% and retraced the bulk of its advance from Monday.

Today's selling sent the benchmark index back below its 50-day (2,096) and 100-day (2,098) moving averages with eight sectors registering losses. To little surprise, cyclical groups paced the slide, but the energy sector (-0.2%) spent the day in a steady rally off its opening low. The sector fought its way back to yesterday's highs even as crude oil plunged 4.2% to $43.08/bbl, settling at a six-year low.

Meanwhile, the other commodity-related sector—materials (-1.9%)—ended at the bottom of the leaderboard with steelmakers showing broad weakness, evidenced by Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 27.22, -1.15), which fell 4.1%. On a somewhat related note, copper futures fell 2.6% to $2.338/lbs, erasing the bulk of their gain from yesterday.

Elsewhere among cyclical groups, the technology sector (-1.7%) displayed relative strength at the start, but could not stay ahead of the broader market into the afternoon. That being said, the early outperformance was due to a spike in the shares of Google (GOOGL 690.30, +27.16) after the company announced plans for a new operating structure. As part of the announced change, Google will create a new company called Alphabet, which will replace Google as a publically-traded entity and should make it easier to evaluate different segments of the company's business. Shares of GOOGL settled higher by 4.1% after being up more than 6.0% at the start. As for other tech heavyweights, Apple (AAPL 113.55, -6.17), Intel (INTC 28.99, -0.65), and Microsoft (MSFT 46.41, -0.92) lost between 1.9% and 5.2% as China-related concerns pressured the multinational companies.

On the upside, rate-sensitive telecom services (+0.1%) and utilities (+0.5%) ended in the green, benefitting from strength in the Treasury market that sent the 10-yr yield lower by nine basis points to 2.14%.

Today's participation was roughly in-line with recent averages as more than 830 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data included Productivity/Labor Cost data and Wholesale Inventories:

• Nonfarm productivity increased 1.3% in Q2 2015 after declining an upwardly revised 1.1% (from -3.1%) in the first quarter while the consensus expected an increase of 1.4% 
  • The increase in second quarter productivity ended two consecutive quarterly declines. 
  • Year-over-year, nonfarm productivity increased 0.3%, down from a 0.6% gain in Q1 2015 
  • Unit labor costs increased 0.5% in the second quarter while the consensus expected an increase of 0.1%; however, the reported increase was the smallest rise since a 0.1% increase in Q3 2014 
• Wholesale inventories increased 0.9% in June after a downwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.8%) in May while the consensus expected an increase of 0.3% 
  • Wholesale sales increased 0.1% in June after a 0.2% increase in May while durable sales declined 1.1% in June, which resulted mostly from a 2.8% decline in automotive sales. Nondurable sales increased 1.2% on strong demand for farm products (3.6%) and petroleum (3.7%) 
  • The inventory-to-sales ratio increased to 1.30 in June from 1.29 in May 

Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET while the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be topped off with the 14:00 ET release of the Treasury Budget for July (consensus -$149.00 billion).

• Nasdaq Composite +6.4% YTD 
• S&P 500 +1.2% YTD 
• Russell 2000 +0.5% YTD 
• Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD

Alasdair Macleod has posted an article at www.goldmoney.com which I think is important.

The thrust of the article is that China, at some point, will have to revalue gold in China; which means, in other words, that China will decide to devalue the Yuan against gold.

Since "mainstream economics" holds that gold is no longer important in world business, such a measure might be regarded as just an idiosyncrasy of Chinese thinking, and not politically significant, as would be a devaluation against the dollar, which is a no-no amongst the Central Bank community of the world.

However, as I understand the measure, it would be indeed world-shaking.

Here's how I see it:

Currently, the price of an ounce of gold in Shanghai is roughly 6.20 Yuan x $1084 Dollars = 6,721 Yuan.

 

Now suppose that China decides to revalue gold in China to 9408 Yuan per ounce: a devaluation of the Yuan of 40%, from 6721 to 9408 Yuan.

What would have to happen?

Importers around the world would immediately purchase physical gold at $1,084 Dollars an ounce, and ship it to Shanghai, where they would sell it for 9408 Yuan, where the price was formerly 6,721 Yuan.

The Chinese economy operates in Yuan and prices there would not be affected - at least not immediately - by the devaluation of the Yuan against gold.

Importers of Chinese goods would then be able to purchase 40% more goods for the same amount of Dollars they were paying before the devaluation of the Yuan against gold. What importer of Chinese goods could resist the temptation to purchase goods now so much cheaper? China would then consolidate its position as a great manufacturing power. Its languishing economy would recuperate spectacularly.

The purchase of physical gold would take off, no longer the activity of detested "gold-bugs", but an activity linked to making money, albeit fiat money. Inevitably, the price of physical gold in Dollars would separate from the price of the "paper gold" traded on Comex and go higher, leaving paper gold way behind in price.

If the US were to provide the market with physical gold in the quantities being purchased for trade with China, it might be able to prevent the rise in the price of gold in Dollars; however, we know that Comex has only one ounce of physical gold for every 124 owners of paper gold, so that action would be impossible. China would be sucking up the world's gold at a huge rate, if the price of gold in Dollars were to remain where it is at present.

The only way that the US might counter the Chinese move, would be to revalue gold in Dollars; which is to say, the US would have to effect a corresponding devaluation of the Dollar against gold, to nullify the effect of the Chinese devaluation of the Yuan against gold.

At a Dollar price of gold of $1,517 Dollars per ounce, the Chinese devaluation would be left without effect: the present Yuan/Dollar exchange rate would then remain at 6.20 Yuan per Dollar: 9,408 Yuan/6.20 exchange rate = $1,517 Dollars per ounce.

This is the old policy of the 1930's, commonly known as "beggar thy neighbor", where countries carried out competitive devaluations against gold in order to preserve their manufactures and continue exporting. The response of importing nations was to raise tariffs on imported goods. (Say good-bye to an integrated world economy.)

Will China decide to "beggar its neighbors", the US and Europe? I think that the huge problem of keeping the Chinese economy on its feet and avoiding the political instability which would rage through China by not doing so - with a population in excess of 1.3 billion human beings - will be so compelling that China will practically inevitably resort to raising the price of gold in China.

When might this happen?

The world economy is going from bad to worse by the day. The Chinese may opt for this measure out of sheer desperation, and it may be a reality soon. I have the sensation that things are falling apart around the world at an increasing rate of speed. Perhaps China will move this Fall?

Devaluing the Dollar on the part of the US would upset the apple-cart of Dollar hegemony in the world. But not to devalue would price US goods out of world markets, along with European goods. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Dollar devaluation would force a Euro devaluation and all Hell would break loose, as all countries would belatedly realize the importance of having gold reserves, and one country after another would devalue their currencies against gold. Import tariffs and restrictions on imports would once again prevail. The dream of "Globalization based on the fiat dollar" would evaporate in the orgy of currency devaluations against gold.

The era of the Dollar as reserve currency of the world, would have ended.

When the dust shall have settled on this giant crisis, the powers of this world will have recognized, once again, that gold is money; what would remain would be the work of establishing the gold standard de jure, by international accords, in order to abolish tariffs and import restrictions and renew the free international flow of goods.

However, another horrible scenario is possible: the US, run by those who insist on maintaining the plan for world domination through endless war, may decide to go to war with China and with Russia, too, for good measure. Let us hope that reason prevails and that the Dollar loses its status as world reserve currency in a peaceful manner.